The Oakland Review

For weeks I have been furiously mixing up drinks trying to perfect my craft. This means staying in on the weekends and constantly keeping a stocked bar (which isn’t always a bad thing). But last weekend I wanted to get out! Explore! Drink the fruits of someone else’s labor! So where does a 21 year old with impeccable taste for a fine cocktail go on a Friday night? I’ll give you one guess… it wasn’t the club. Instead, we went to one of my favorite speakeasies in metro Detroit – The Oakland!

The Oakland is located in Ferndale off of 9 mile and recently just won “Best Cocktail Bar in Detroit” – among other prestigious awards. Check out their awesome website here! 

(Image from RedThread Mag)

 I am in no way affiliated with The Oakland, but I am absolutely smitten by it. I love the atmosphere, the intimate conversations going on around you, and of course the drinks! This is a true speakeasy in the sense that they actually have house rules! See below.

The Oakland House Rules:

(From Yelp!)

 As you can see, cellphone use is frowned upon and therefore I wasn’t able to take a photo of my drink. So sorry! But this time around I went with the Juliet and Romeo. It is a gin based drink, full of muddled cucumber and mint, a splash of lime juice as well as simple syrup and includes a few drops of rosewater. I’m sure you all have figured out that I am a gin fanatic and this drink does the trick! I found a recipe online that is similar so I thought I would share it with you all!

Now I think once the semester is over I will make a trip down to Sugarhouse in Corktown, but what about you guys? Any awesome speakeasies hiding in your towns? Let me know!

Old favorites & Vieux Mot Tutorial

For this week’s post I have prepared something verrrry special! But before we get into that, how did everyone celebrate National Margarita Day yesterday? I personally am not a huge margarita fan, I mean I like one on Cinco De Mayo and occasionally out at a Mexican restaurant, but other than that I’m not too partial to them. There is just something about icy/slushy drinks that deters me. Anyways, instead of blending up some tequila drinks, I decided to make an old favorite. You could say this weekend was full of old favorites!

I give you, The Corpse Reviver #2

This is one of the cocktails that first got me into mixology! There was a restaurant in town that could make a mean corpse reviver, which peaked my interest in the process of preparing it.

Here are the ingredients you will need;

The finished product!

Now for another old favorite, I have prepared a Youtube tutorial for how to prepare my all-time favorite drink – the Vieux Mot! Check it out below, enjoy!